Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Alex Chow, Laura Nicolas Lorente, Cristina Nicolas Lorente, Vjekoslav Babic, David Roys, David Studebaker, Christopher Studebaker, Mark Brummel

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781788297158
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Intelligence
• Index: Business

Implementing ERP SystemsAbout This Book• Solve common business problems with the valuable features and flexibility of Dynamics NAV• Design software that is maintainable outside the ecosystem of their creators• Create configuration packages and perform data migration on your ownWho This Book Is ForThis book is for Dynamics NAV partners, developers, consultants, and end users who want to know everything about Dynamics NAV implementations and development.What You Will Learn• Create reusable data migration packages• Successfully upgrade your installation to the latest version• Manage and expand your existing installation with additional functionalities• Apply object-oriented practices to C/AL programming• Refactor legacy code and avoid anti-patterns• Build relationships with COM technologies• Clone codes and their application in Dynamics NAV• Automate deployment into Dynamics NAVIn DetailMicrosoft Dynamics NAV is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application used in all kinds of organizations around the world. It provides a great variety of functionality, out-of-the-box, in different topics such as accounting, sales, purchase processing, logistics, and manufacturing. Microsoft Dynamics NAV also allows companies to grow their applications by customizing solutions to meet specific requirements.This course is a hands-on tutorial on working with a real Dynamics NAV implementation. It begins by providing an insight into the different tools available to migrate data from client legacy systems into Microsoft Dynamics NAV. If you are already live with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, you will learn about upgrades and what to expect from them. We'll also show you how to implement additional or expanding functionalities within your existing Microsoft Dynamics NAV installation, perform data analysis, debug error messages, and implement free third-party add-ons to your existing installation. From here, you will be introduced to integrated development tools to make you a highly productive developer in the NAV environment.The course will serve as a comprehensive reference guide, complementing NAV's Help files. You will find this course really useful if you want to evaluate Microsoft Dynamics NAV's development capabilities or need to manage NAV-based projects. Additionally, you will also learn about the NAV application structure, the C/SIDE development environment, the C/AL language, the construction and uses of each object type, and how it all fits together. Moving on, you will be guided through the NAV way of solving problems. You will be introduced to patterns and the software NAV architecture and will then build an example application. Then, you will walk through the details of architectural patterns, design patterns, and implementation patterns and will also learn about anti-patterns and handling legacy code. You will learn how to build solutions using patterns. The course offers premium, highly practical content on this recently released version of Dynamics NAV, and includes material from the following Packt books: • Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV - Third Edition• Programming Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV• Learning Dynamics NAV PatternsStyle and approachThis course is for Dynamics NAV partners, developers, consultants, and end users who want to know everything about Dynamics NAV implementations and development.

Part 1. Module 1

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Implementing ERP Systems

Chapter 1. Exploring Microsoft Dynamics NAV – An Introduction

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that is specifically made for growing small to mid-sized companies.

Note

This is, at least, what Microsoft's marketing department says. In reality, Dynamics NAV is being used by large and publically-traded companies as well around the world.

An ERP is a software that integrates the internal and external management information across an entire organization. The purpose of an ERP is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of organizations. An ERP system is meant to handle all the functional areas within an organization on a single software system. This way, the output of an area can be used as the input of another area, without the need to duplicate data.

This chapter will give you an idea of what Dynamics NAV is and what you can expect from it. The topics covered in this chapter are the following:

• What is Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
• The functional areas found in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
• A history of Dynamics NAV
• How to use Dynamics NAV on different environments (Windows client, Web client, SharePoint framework, Web Services, and so on)

Understanding Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 is a Role Tailored ERP. Traditionally, ERP software is built to provide a lot of functionalities where users will need to hunt down the information. This is more of a passive approach to information in which the user will need to go somewhere within the system to retrieve information.

Dynamics NAV works differently. The role-tailored experience is based on individuals within an organization, their roles, and the tasks they perform. When users first enter Dynamics NAV, they see the data needed for the daily tasks they do according to their role. Users belonging to different roles will have a different view of the system; each of them will see the functions they need to properly perform their daily tasks. Instead of the users chasing down information, the information comes to them.

Here's an example of the main screen for an order processor. All the relevant information for a user who is processing sales orders are displayed in a business intelligent (BI) format:

The functional areas within Dynamics NAV

Dynamics NAV covers the following functional areas inside an organization:

• Financial management: Most of the functionalities from "off-the-shelf" accounting software can be found in this module. The functionalities include, but are not limited to, G/L budgeting, financial reporting, cash management, receivables and payables, fixed assets, VAT and tax reporting, intercompany transactions, cost accounting, consolidation, multicurrency, intrastate, and so on.
• Sales and marketing: This is for the companies that want to track customer orders and determine when the items can be promised to be delivered to the customer. This area covers customers, order processing, expected delivery, order promises, sales returns, pricing, contacts, marketing campaigns, and so on.
• Purchase: This module is required when you buy goods and services and you want to keep track of what you have ordered from your vendors and when the goods should be delivered to your door, so you can make the stuff or ship the stuff to your customers. This area includes vendors, order processing, approvals, planning, costing, and so on.
• Warehouse: Where are your items in your warehouse? This functional area answers this question for you. Under the warehouse area, you will find inventory, shipping and receiving, locations, warehouse bin contents, picking, put-aways, assembly, and so on.
• Manufacturing: The manufacturing area includes product design, bills of materials, routing, capacities, forecast, production planning, production order, costing, subcontracting, and so on.
• Job: This module is typically used for companies that deal with long and drawn out projects. Within this job area, you can create projects, phases and tasks, planning, time sheets, work in process, and likewise.
• Resource planning: If your company has internal resources for which you keep track of cost and/or revenue, this module is for you. This area includes resources, capacity, and other tools to keep track of cost and revenue for resources.
• Service: This functional area is design for a company that sells items to their customers that need to be serviced periodically, with or without warranty. Within this service area, you can manage service items, contract management, order processing, planning and dispatching, service tasks, and so on
• Human resources: This involves basic employee tracking. It allows you to manage employees, absences, and so on.

These areas are covered in more detail in the next section of this chapter.

One of the best-selling points about Dynamics NAV is that it can be customized. A brand new functional area can be created from scratch or new features can be added to an existing functional area. All the development is done with the programming language called C/AL.

When someone creates a new functional area, a vertical (a wide range of functions for a specific industry) or horizontal (a wide range of functions that can be applied across an industry), they usually create it as an add-on. An add-on can be registered with Microsoft, with the appropriate fees of course. If some features are added to an existing area, usually it is a customization that will only be used on the database of the customer who asked for the feature.

Making add-ons available greatly enhances the base Dynamics NAV functionalities to fit the needs of every industry in every business.

One thing unique about Dynamics NAV is that the entire code is located on a single layer. Therefore, if you customize an area, you have to do it by modifying the standard code and adding code in the middle of the standard object definition. This made it a little tough to upgrade in the prior versions of Dynamics NAV. However, with the release of Dynamics NAV 2016, code upgrades can be done automatically using Power Shell! We will dive into Power Shell later.

Dynamics NAV uses a three-tier architecture:

• SQL Server is the data tier and is used to store the data in a database.
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server is the middle or server tier, managing the entire business logic and communication. It also provides an additional layer of security between clients and the database and an additional layer for user authentication.
• On the client tier, we will find Windows clients and the web client. Dynamics NAV 2016 also supports other kinds of clients including Web Services (both SOAP and OData), mobile tablets, a SharePoint client through the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Portal Framework, and the NAS service.

You can install Dynamics NAV in more complex scenarios, as you can have multiple instances of any of the core components.

History of Dynamics NAV

We are not historians, but we thought that it would be important to know where we come from and where we are going. Some of the current restrictions or features can be better understood if we know a bit of the history of Dynamics NAV. This is why we have added this section.

Dynamics NAV was first developed by a Danish firm and the program was called Navision A/S. In 2002, Microsoft bought Navision A/S and included it in the Microsoft Business Solution division. The product has gone through several name changes. The names: Navision Financials, Navision Attain, and Microsoft Business Solutions Navision Edition, have been used to refer to the product that is currently called Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Note that all the previous names included the word Navision. This is why many people keep calling it Navision instead of NAV.

Prior to Dynamics NAV 2009, the development environment was actually the primary end user interface before Microsoft revamped the user interface that we call the Role Tailored Client (RTC).

One of the greatest technological breakthroughs with the original Navision (the name before it was called Dynamics NAV) was that the application programming objects, the user interface, and the database resided together, in one file! Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, no other software came close to having an efficient design like this. This was the main menu for Navision Financials version 2.0:

We're now more than a decade away from 2000 and tech...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Credits
• Preface
• What you need for this learning path
• Who this learning path is for
• Reader feedback
• Customer support
• Part 1. Module 1
• Chapter 1. Exploring Microsoft Dynamics NAV – An Introduction
• The functional areas within Dynamics NAV
• History of Dynamics NAV
• Functional areas
• Accessing Dynamics NAV
• Summary
• Chapter 2. What's New in NAV 2016?
• Development changes
• IT changes
• Summary
• Chapter 3. Dynamics NAV – General Considerations
• No save button
• The posting routines
• Navigating through your data
• Real-time data gathering – the SIFT technology
• Everything leads to accounting
• The Dynamics NAV database
• Summary
• Chapter 4. The Implementation Process – From the Reseller
• Methodology
• Roles
• Phases
• Summary
• Chapter 5. The Implementation Process on the Customer Side
• Measuring goals
• Defining the internal processes
• Improve before automating
• Getting the requirements
• Change management
• Get involved in testing the system
• Involve end users
• Summary
• Chapter 6. Migrating Data
• Converting data from the old system to Dynamics NAV's needs
• Master data
• Open entries
• Historical data
• Open documents
• Choosing a go-live date
• Summary
• Chapter 7. Upgrading Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Upgrades prior to Dynamics NAV 2013
• Upgrades from Dynamics NAV 2013 forward
• Upgrading process checklist
• Upgrading steps to NAV 2013
• Upgrading tools
• Summary
• Chapter 8. Development Considerations
• Data model principles
• The posting process
• Where to write customized code
• Formatting customized code
• Summary
• Chapter 9. Functional Changes on Existing Implementations
• What is a functional change?
• Interactions with other functionalities
• Writing a to-do list to implement a change
• Choosing the right time
• Planning the change
• Summary
• Chapter 10. Data Analysis and Reporting
• Creating views
• Statistics
• Charts
• Using reports
• Account schedules
• Analysis views
• Extracting data
• Understanding report development
• Summary
• Chapter 11. Debugging
• Debugging in Dynamics NAV 2016
• Placing breakpoints
• Line-by-line execution
• The Call Stack FactBox
• The Watches FactBox
• Summary
• Chapter 12. Popular Reporting Options with Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Query Designer
• Charts
• Web services
• Power BI
• Jet Reports Express
• Summary
• Part 2. Module 2
• Chapter 1. An Introduction to NAV 2015
• Significant changes in NAV 2015
• A developer's overview of NAV 2015
• Hands-on development in NAV 2015
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 2. Tables
• Enhancing our sample application
• Types of tables
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 3. Data Types and Fields
• Fields
• Data types
• FieldClass property options
• Filtering
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 4. Pages – The Interactive Interface
• Types of pages
• Page Designer
• Page components
• WDTU Page Enhancement – part 1
• Page controls
• WDTU Page Enhancement – part 2
• Page Actions
• Learning more
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 5. Queries and Reports
• Reports
• Report components – overview
• Report data flow
• Report components – detail
• Creating a Report in NAV 2015
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 6. Introduction to C/SIDE and C/AL
• C/AL syntax
• Some simple coding modifications
• Finishing the processing code
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 7. Intermediate C/AL
• Internal documentation
• Validation functions
• Date and Time functions
• Data conversion and formatting functions
• FlowField and SumIndexField functions
• Flow control
• Input and Output functions
• Filtering
• InterObject communication
• Enhancing the WDTU application
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 8. Advanced NAV Development Tools
• Role Center pages
• XMLports
• Web services
• Summary
• Review questions
• Chapter 9. Successful Conclusions
• Multi-language system
• Multi-currency system
• Navigate
• Debugging in NAV 2015
• C/SIDE Test-driven development
• Other Interfaces
• NAV Application Server (NAS)
• Client Add-ins
• Customizing Help
• NAV development projects – general guidance
• Design for efficiency
• Updating and upgrading
• Supporting material
• Summary
• Review questions
• Part 3. Module 3
• Chapter 1. Introducing Dynamics NAV Patterns and Software Architecture
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV Design Patterns
• Patterns elements and hierarchy
• Building blocks
• Metadata
• Base application
• Summary
• Chapter 2. Architectural Patterns
• The Supplemental and Subsidiary Pattern
• The Compound Pattern
• The Rules Pattern
• The Master Data Pattern
• The Journal Template-Batch-Line Pattern
• The Entry Pattern
• Document Pattern
• The Argument table
• Summary
• Chapter 3. Design Patterns
• The Select Pattern
• The Number Series Pattern
• Address Integration Pattern
• Multi-Level Setup
• Document History
• Copy Document Pattern
• Job Queue Entry Pattern
• Dismissible dialogs and save preferences
• Setup Update Pattern
• Model-View ViewModel Pattern
• Summary
• Chapter 4. Building an Example Application Using Patterns
• The Pattern dependencies
• Step one – Foundation
• Step two – Master Data
• Step three – Journals & Entries
• Step four – Documents
• The layered model
• Summary
• Chapter 5. Coding Best Practices
• Class-Method-Property
• Function libraries and interfaces
• Natural Language Programming
• Encapsulation
• Façade
• Hooks
• Variant variables
• Managing DLL
• Summary
• Chapter 6. Anti-patterns and Handling Legacy Code
• Legacy code
• Refactoring the C/AL Code
• The boy scout rule
• Summary
• Chapter 7. Building Solutions Using Patterns
• Creating the Table objects
• Applying Design Patterns
• Defining the methods
• Writing the Code and Link methods
• Refactoring
• Testing the application
• Upgrading the application
• Building our application
• Managing the source code
• Summary
• Bibliography
• Index